1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooling and heating cup holder which is installed in a vehicle, etc., holds a cup therein and cools or heats the contents of the cup.
2. Description of Related Art
A vehicle, etc. is provided with a cup holder. Although most conventional cup holders that are installed in vehicles have a simple function of holding cups, cup holders that are proposed to be installed in some vehicle models have a cooling and heating function in addition to the cup holding function.
However, the conventional cup holders having the cooling and heating function are problematic in that the cup holders are configured to realize the cooling and heating function by heat conduction, however, it is almost impossible to efficiently cool or heat the contents only by heat conduction.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional cooling and heating cup holder. As shown in the drawing, although the conventional cooling and heating cup holder uses a Peltier element 20, this cup holder is configured in such a way that a cup held in the cup holder can be cooled or heated by heat that is transferred to a cup holder body 10 only by heat conduction.
Therefore, the above-mentioned technique is problematic in that, when the contact surface area between the cup and the cup holder is small, heat conduction may not realize a desired cooling and heating function. Described in detail, the size of the cup may not correspond to the size of the cup holder and the cup may have a recessed bottom. Further, when the cup is a paper cup, the material of which has low heat conductivity, heat conduction may fail to transfer heat to the cup so that the temperature of the cup tends to become equal to an environmental temperature.
Accordingly, it is required to propose a cup holder that can solve the problems and can efficiently realize the cooling and heating function.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.